Nightmare Fuel / Amphibia Season 1

Nice Kitty...^note Er, killapiller...

Anne or Beast?

• Anne's been wandering around the woods for days, fending for herself while hiding from carnivorous beasts. The only things to eat are bugs, and some roots if she's lucky — and it's unknown how much of those she was able to salvage on her own, given she needed Sprig's help to identify some potentially edible foods. She's alone, confused, trapped in a bizarre and dangerous world with extra-large bugs and predators that could and would eat her if they get a chance, and has zero context as to how she ended up there in the first place, not to mention her fears about being separated from her friends and family, as well as the unresolved guilt from feeling this must be some karmic Disproportionate Retribution for ignoring her family and stealing the music box the whole time. And she's only thirteen.
• Anne nearly getting lynched by the angry mob. They manage to ambush and tie her down by virtue of Zerg Rush. Even though Sprig frees her, Wally suggests harvesting her for medicinal purposes.

Best Fronds

• The serpent in the lake. Anne goes Oh, Crap! when she spots it behind Sprig and they try to outswim it. Sprig can, but Anne's limbs are too tiny, demonstrating how she's mentally and physically not equipped for survival in Amphibia, being pretty much near the bottom of the food chain along with the frogs. Soon, the snake catches up and wraps them in its coils. Anne goes My God, What Have I Done? and begs Sprig to leave her.
  • It's never stated outright, but it's implied that the serpent ate whatever poor frog tried writing the sign to warn others against swimming in the lake. Sprig notes that the sign looks like it was written in a hurry, but observant viewers will note that the painted letters devolve into a squiggly line towards the direction of the lake, as if the writer was seized and dragged into the waters in the act of finishing the sign.
  • The serpent actually swallows Sprig, in what appears to be a Heroic Sacrifice on the young frog's behalf. Although it's just a ploy by Sprig to poison the predator with some hot pepper, for a while it looks like Anne has just lost her new best friend.
• It's revealed that Anne’s friends, Sasha and Marcy, also wound up in Amphibia at the same time she did. Sasha has already been captured by the Big Bad of the season, chained and imprisoned at the top of an Evil Tower of Ominousness, while Marcy’s whereabouts are currently unknown.

Cane Crazy

• When Anne breaks Hop Pop's favorite cane just after he threatens to throw her out if she continues to disrespect him, she freaks out and says that she cannot go back to living in a cave. We're treated to a flashback that shows Anne in a cave, curled up in a fetal position and surrounded by giant bugs and worms. These ones don't seem interested in eating Anne, but their hellish screeching and slithering around in the darkness with her, without Anne having any such form of shelter or protection from the elements like a blanket to comfort herself with, is hardly a pleasant experience. Anne is depicted with a Thousand-Yard Stare, clearly having learned it's better to endure the discomfort than make an enemy of her 'roommates'. One can only wonder what other hellish things she had to endure before she met the Plantars.
  Anne: (shudders in remembrance) The nights were the hardest.
• The Doom Tree. Few have ever found it, and fewer still have returned to tell the tale (Hop Pop's grandfather apparently being one of those lucky few). When Anne, Sprig, and Polly find it, they notice it's surrounded by frog skeletons, and it turns out to be a giant stick insect, who likely devoured anyone who got close enough. Sure, its true form once Anne uses a bunch of termites to strip its wood armor off it is Nightmare Retardant, but on the other hand, something that cute-looking had no compunctions murdering and potentially eating a bunch of frogs that wandered too close to it, thinking it was nothing more than a harmless tree.

Hop Luck

• Maddie's behavior is rather creepy, to say the least, like being introduced driving a sharp stick into a Voodoo Doll of Sprig, and implying that she wants to kill him. Even when later episodes show that she's not a bad person deep down, it's still hinted that her interest in magic has lead to her dabbling in some seriously dark stuff — and she's still just a kid!
  Sprig: Aw, it's not so bad. Maybe we'll learn to love each oth- (Maddie is suddenly right next to him) AHH!
  Maddie: I've seen your death in my mind.
  Sprig: (nervous grin) I was kinda hoping it'd be a surprise, heh...
  [Scare Chord]
  Maddie: It will be.
  [close-up on a terrified-looking Sprig while vaguely demonic chuckles are heard in the background]
• The tomato plant is the stuff of nightmares with how it easily eats the Plantars and nearly digests them. Sprig hopes that maybe the gastric juices are painless. Even more so, the plant is shown intentionally sneaking up on the Plantars when they're distracted arguing over whether they should risk getting the tomatoes they need from it, underlining the reach its tentacles have to snag them when they're unprepared, and easily consuming them all despite their attempts to run away, showing a degree of intelligence and cunning to grab its prey.
  • Of course, there's also the way the Plantars ultimately extricate themselves from their perilous situation — eating their way out through the plant's throat stalk, complete with particularly wild-eyed expressions and being covered in the plant's Symbolic Blood.
  Polly: (spits on the plant's still-twitching corpse) Know your place, plant!!

Stakeout

• Hop Pop and Anne get tripped up on each other's energy drinks and end up mistaking Sprig and Polly for the corn thief. They almost kill them (before they come back to their senses), and Sprig is in tears and begging them not to kill him. Given Hop Pop's Guilt Complex over Sprig and Polly's parents, this would have been especially horrible for him once he came back to his senses. Of note is the moment when their tripped-out wacky actions stop being funny and start turning serious.
  (Hop Pop and Anne are waving their arms around haphazardly and saying sound effects out loud before a confused Sprig and Polly)
  Hop Pop: It must be immune to magic!
  Anne: Quick! Grab those power-ups!
  Sprig: Power-ups?
  (Anne and Hop Pop grab a pitchfork and a sickle and run screaming at the two children, who turn and flee for their lives)

The Domino Effect

• Domino II looks like a cute caterpillar, but she grows up into a frog-eating moth that nearly eats the Plantars. It's a mix of both cute and horrifying.
• Hop Pop's worries when he realizes that Anne snuck a wild animal into the house, not knowing it was dangerous to frogs. They go around the basement, searching for a creature that is meant to be in the wild. Then you see Domino II's eyes...

Taking Charge

• Hop Pop getting electrocuted, which is played with some uncomfortable realism. There's some pretty dramatic music that plays during this scene too.

Anne Theft Auto

• Anne's unexpected (though understandable) reaction to Hop-Pop pulling an Ironic Echo on her: being sleep-deprived and having spent the entire day prior taking the snail on a joy ride, Anne's only response is to chuckle evilly until it slowly evolves into full-on evil laughter that would make Bill Cipher proud as she bangs her head against the wall a few times and walks out. Needless to say, Hop Pop is quite startled.
  Hop Pop: [shocked] I don't feel safe!

Anne Vs. Wild

• Soggy Joe getting axed in the back. Even if it turns out he was fine, you can't blame the Plantars for screaming when he stands up with an axe lodged in his emergency armor.
• The Mudmen turn out to be a Cannibal Clan of frogs that nearly manage to corner and eat Anne and the Plantars.
• The ending scene where Anne shows the music box. Hop Pop is revealed to know what it is out of Anne's sight; turns out it's some ancient relic called the "Calamity Box".

Contagi-Anne

• Everyone could see the ending coming a mile away. The whole thing was a prank to guilt Anne into admitting she skived off work by pretending to be sick. There's no way that the entire Plantar family were actually quietly resigning themselves to their inevitable deaths, right? Right? Right? Nope! They really did think they were about to die. Thankfully, it turns out to have been a misdiagnosis.

Family Shrub

• Hop Pop getting absolutely COVERED in glue and screaming for help while looking like some crazed slime monster.
• The true horror of the pumpkin creature found in the cellar isn't any kind of threat it may pose, but the sheer pathos of its condition. Its roars appear to be as much in pain and confusion as rage, and its existence appears to be constant, inexplicable agony.

Toad Tax

• The mayor nearly kills Sprig when the latter learns that the mayor stole the town's taxes. We all thought the Mayor was sleazy, but this is a whole new low.
• Anne being nearly killed by the toad warriors. Having her arm get broken was unnerving enough, especially since she's only just a child that attempted to fight adult toads.

Prison Break

• In their introductory scene, one of the herons has stringy bits of bloody-looking rotten flesh caked onto its many-toothed bill!
  • If you slow the playback speed, you can see the horrified expression on a toad's face as he is Swallowed Whole by a heron.
• Grime gains some Villain Respect for Sasha by the end of the episode after she saves his army from the herons. He says she can either work for him or go into the wilderness with little supplies. Sasha agrees to the former with a Cheshire Cat Grin about the fun she'll have, but really, she has no choice: everything out in the wild will try to eat her, and there's little that a human can survive on unless they know a roots expert. Sasha just made a Deal with the Devil to survive and, she hopes, find her friends.
  • The fact that Sasha is looking forward to getting some enjoyment out of aiding Grime in his conquest and tyranny is also unsettling. She was not the best of people back in her home world, but the change in environment for her, as opposed to Anne, might have changed her for the worse.
• Really, this episode puts the events of the previous one and any episode involving the Mayor upping the taxes in a whole new light: the heavy taxation is an extortion scheme by Grime. Any town that refuses to pay will face Grime's wrath. Whenever the mayor raises taxes, he takes the extra for himself, while the rest goes to Toad Tower to save his own skin from Grime.

Trip to the Archives

• Anne nearly getting her hair eaten by a swarm of giant cicadas. And she's stuck in a hole so she can't really do anything except scream. Good thing the Plantars were able to save her.

Snow Day

• Every Hibernation Day, a single member of the town disappears, never to be seen again. It happens so often, the townspeople say goodbye to each other before they go into hibernation! And what is the reason they disappear? A mother weasel feeding them to her babies.
• Speaking of the weasel, just the design of her is every bit as nightmarish as other predators in Amphibia, with her red eyes and long, pointy teeth.

Cracking Mrs. Croaker

• Just, Jonah. The fact that he's been hunting Mrs. Croaker for thirty years and still hasn't given up despite his elderly age is unnerving. Not to mention, the wide variety of weapons he keeps under his coat, followed by the wild, maniacal look in his eyes as he tries to kill her, are just terrifying.

A Night at the Inn

• The Dandy Lion Innkeepers initially seem to be a warm, inviting couple who are generally kind and generous to the Plantars when their snail stops during a storm. It turns out they're part of a Cannibal Clan who actually lay out traps in the road in order to lure wandering amphibians.
• When the Plantars escape and find Bessie inside the barn, they come across many other snails whose owners had been victims. It's mixed with Tear Jerker, as one of the snails had been a coach for a newly-married couple.

Bizarre Bazaar

• Hop-Pop buries the Calamity Box in the ground, saying it's too dangerous for anyone to get their hands on. He knows that in doing this, he's dooming Anne to be trapped in Amphibia forever.
• In a slightly humorous version, Hop Pop notably does not answer when Sprig asks if he's ever killed someone.

Children of the Spore

• Due to the kids acting up and damaging his model boat by accident, Hop Pop desperately tries an elixir on them that makes them behave during the day. He's creeped out by how they become Brainwashed and Crazy, but after it wears off, he uses it again and promises it's the last time. Small wonder they call him out at the end of the episode, though they admit they were being unreasonable.
• Hop Pop tries to barricade the doors and windows against the mushroom zombies. He escapes to the barn, only to find his possessed kids grabbing him. He goes My God, What Have I Done? If not for Bessie resting nearby, he would have been possessed as well.
• Apothecary Gary's been possessed for so long that the mushroom even made him forget his name. It's Lloyd.
  • The way Bessie pulls the mushroom off of Lloyd's head, which is given a Shadow Discretion Shot. While undoubtedly a good thing, it looks and sounds excruciating.
• The final scene, where Jeremy the beetle eats the last of the mushroom and becomes zombified.

Anne of the Year

• After Sasha and Anne reunite, the former says that she brought her friends. How are we introduced to them? A firefly whizzes past Grime and briefly illuminates his face before he snatches it with his tongue, the only thing visible are his glowing eyes. He says, "Nice to finally meet you...Anne Boonchuy." This line is followed by all the toads assembled behind Grime, their eyes glowing red. The music that accompanies it makes it all the more unnerving and disturbing, making one wonder what is going to happen in the next episode.

Reunion

• The plot to outright kill Hop Pop for unwittingly inspiring a rebellion across Amphibia when he ran for mayor against Toadstool. They make it extremely clear that they intend to execute Hop Pop in order to prove to the entire valley that dissent will not be tolerated.
• Anne and the Plantars trying desperately to pull Sasha up as Toad Tower collapses, with Anne then helpless to save her friend when she lets go so that Anne won't share her fate. Grime saves Sasha, thankfully, but takes her away with him while she's unconscious, meaning that Anne will likely have to fight her again one day.
• Sasha's "end of discussion" face and voice. It really hammers in how she keeps Anne under her thumb. It gets even worse when we see she can do this in a Kneel Before Zod way.